


The Darkness of the Desert

by LindseyTanner



Category: Original Work
Genre: Action, Action/Adventure, Blind Character, Blindness, Bullying, Coming of Age, Competition, Desert, Disability, Drama, Emotional, Family, Family Drama, Family Feels, Family Issues, Fiction, Future Fic, Gen, IN SPACE!, OC, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Outer Space, Physical Disability, Race, Racism, Science Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Space Colony, Survival, Teenage Drama, diverse, diversity, planet colony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2019-08-23 05:54:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 15,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16613183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LindseyTanner/pseuds/LindseyTanner
Summary: Yoben has it hard enough. He’s a blind Roma kid struggling to provide for his family on the desert planet Mercury. But when tragedy strikes, his only hope is to win fame, fortune and glory in the Caloris Race, where years mean nothing and days are everything.





	1. Chapter 1

Years mean nothing. Days are everything.

As always, I’m the first one up. My parents still snore on the other side of our tent, despite the sun shining on our faces. I touch the rough canvas tent next to me, warm from the sun. It’s springy when I drum my fingers on it. I get out of bed, and my fingers zip along the tent’s surface and slide over a slick metal support post, one of nine that hold our house secure in the desert.

Breakfast crosses my mind, but I’m content to wait. We have a chronic food shortage here, and water can be hard to come by, too, but what we do have are spices and solar power. We use spices in everything, not just cooking. Our cloths are dyed with rich spices that give them warm, subtle scents. Our blankets smell of turmeric, our clothes paprika and saffron. I make sure not to trip over the embroidered pillows scattered around our home, or the shaggy rugs on the floor. Tapestries of cloth decorate our tent walls and create cool patches where they shade from the sun.

I reach the door and pull back the tent flap. The sun, though not fully risen or set, immediately begins to sting my face, but I ignore it. I hadn’t bothered to put on shoes, so the dry sand that crunches under my feet stings, too. My weight partly buries my feet in the sand, and I feel the grit between my toes.

I take a deep breath of hot air as the wind begins to pick up and swirl through my hair and clothes. It could be a sandstorm brewing, but I’ll take my chances. I go as far as the rope fence that thread around posts stuck in the ground around our tent like spokes on a wheel, planted there because when sandstorms blow in with no warning like they do two or three times a week, everyone is blind, not just me.

“Yoben! What are you doing?” I hear the tent door snap as my mother whips it out of her way. “You cannot be out here alone! What if there were people passing through?”

“I would’ve heard them.”

“Maybe not, you cannot hear everything. And without your respirator!” She takes my arm and ushers me inside. “Your sisters are not even up yet.”

“I know, I _definitely_ would’ve heard them.” My twin sisters are the noisiest things on the planet. Probably all the other planets, too.

“Sit down, I will make breakfast.” She practically throws me into a chair and bustles into the kitchen. “Do you even know what time it is?”

“Before five, Father’s alarm hasn’t—” The alarm in question—old technology, but it still works, so we use it—rings from my parents’ side of the tent, and Father stretches so far to turn it off that the bedframe creaks. It squeaks some more as he sits up and yawns.

“Morning Sibella, Yoben,” he says in his deep voice. In all my life I’ve never heard a voice deeper than his.

“Good morning, Father.”

“Good morning, Kalo,” says Mother.

The alarm was loud enough to wake Malina, one of my sisters, who bounces out of bed, but Freza, the other, would stay there all year if you let her.

“Is it festival day?” asks Malina.

“It is. Why, do you want to go?” Father teases. We’ve been looking forward to this festival for months. Father finally got a day off work.

Mother prepares breakfast fresh for us. Loudly. I think she does it to wake Freza up.

Blini—folded stuffed pancakes—same as always because they’re affordable, along with strong coffee. Our food would be bland if not for the spices we grow next to the stove. Mother looks down on the packaged stuff: “Our ‘fashionable’ city neighbors with their ‘fashionable’ synthetic spices that taste like the bottom of a shoe,” she would say, but it was mostly because of the prices.

We wash up for breakfast, eat quickly, wash up again afterwards, and get dressed for the festival.

I use an emery board on my nails. I keep them pretty short so I don’t accidently scratch people, and so it’s easier for me to read braille.

Water sloshes and dishes clink together as Mother sets them in their basins. Later she'll do laundry, shirts in one basin and pants in another, and my sisters and I will help her. Clothes dry quickly on the line out here.

Mother picks out our clothes.

“I can dress myself,” I say.

“Not today. Today is special.”

I sigh. “What color is it?”

“Dark orange, like the lowest sunset.” To me, that means a little cooler temperature than usual. Between Mercury’s original rotation speed and the devices at the poles that increase gravity and slow our planet’s spin even more, our “days” last months and our “years” last days. We have to follow the sunrise/set band around, not just because that’s where the work is, but also because if we don’t, we’ll fry or freeze. That doesn’t stop the people in the cities from settling down, because they have more technology to survive the extreme temperatures.

“Give me that hairbrush.” Mother takes the brush from one of my sisters and sets about attacking my thick hair.

“Will we have to move again, soon?” asks Freza.

“Not for a while, yet. There is still work to be had here, and the sun is in the middle of its course.”

“Good. My classmates are nicer here.”

“Yes, and I don’t want to fight with another schoolteacher to let you in the regular classes where you belong. None of this lower-level nonsense, not for my girls. Only got the best scores on your exams last year, but does that matter to them?”

She tugs at my hair. “Ouch, Mother.”

“Sorry, Yoben. Ah, it is good enough. Put your shoes on, do you have your clicker?” She sets the hairbrush down on the little side table with a clatter.

“Yes, Mother.”

“Kalo, your violin?”

“I have it, my love.”

“Are we ready?” Mother asks. “Respirators on? Let’s go.” She takes me by the elbow and Malina by the hand and leads us all out the door.

 

_Updates every Monday. BooksByLindsey.wordpress.com_


	2. Chapter 2

“The clickers in my shoes keep going off,” I complain. “The sand is confusing them. It makes them think I’m about to run into something.”

“Well, turn them off,” Mother says.

“There’s no off button.”

“It will get better when we reach the festival. It is on solid rock.”

The sun blazes down on us from one end of the walk to the other. Our respirators provide a hint of humidity, but not enough to keep our throats from drying. We stop often to sip from canteens of warm water. There are new canteens out that combine hydrogen and oxygen in the air to refill themselves, but we couldn’t afford them in a thousand lifetimes.

We pummel the sand on our way; Father’s heavy footfalls, Mother’s quick steps, Freza’s shoes scuffing the ground, and Malina’s barely audible tiptoes. I’ve been told my sisters are identical, but nothing about them is the same to me.

 “Do you like my dress?” asks Malina. “It’s soft, feel it!” She presses the fabric into my fingers.

“Yes, it is. It’s nice.” My other sister wouldn’t be caught dead in a dress.

“Quiet, or we will lose moisture,” says Mother. I hate going so long without hearing anybody communicate, but she’s right. We’ll just get dehydrated faster.

I smell the festival before I hear it. Familiar spices mix with fried food and bonfire smoke. My shoes touch rock instead of sand, and the clickers finally stop.

“Hey, Yoben!” It’s Toňu, a sighted cousin of mine. He runs up to us and hugs me. Mother and Father walk a little distance away, probably to greet his parents.

“Hey, do I look stupid in this?” I ask him.

“You look fine.”

It’s a little scary trusting Mom with my wardrobe. She says I look good in dark orange, but I have no idea. So when I talk to girls, I have to hope they think I look good in dark orange, too.

We go over to another group, and I recognize a few of their voices: Tsura, Gillie, and Lela. They’re kids my age, and most of them are blind, too.

Some of us can see light and shadow, some can see vague shapes, fuzzy like static or a fluffy rug, and others can see pinpoints of what they look at. One of them swears he can echolocate with his shoe clickers, but I’ve never been able to. As for me, I see nothing.

Tsura moved here from Venus, where life is even more difficult because of their caste system and a recent insurrection. And their sogginess. With all the technology they have, they still haven’t figured out how to make it stop raining.

Mercury is a little different from the other planets. We were one of the first planets colonized because we’re so close to Earth, so our technology isn’t super advanced. Mercury spins so slowly already, plus the additional gravity machines at the poles that keep us from flying off every time we jump, it takes ages for the sun to rise and set. A year will pass before morning turns to night. Planet Uranus is similar, but the differences are that Uranus has an atmosphere that's thicker than ours, and we're a lot closer to the sun. Uranus also doesn't spin at all since it was colonized, whereas Mercury does, just slowly. So the sunlit parts here are really hot, and the shaded parts are really cold.

That's why our people are nomadic. We spend our time chasing the band between darkness and light. Between freezing and burning. And also following the jobs; solar farm panels are maintained while the farm is in the dusk/dawn band. While the sun shines on them, they collect energy, our primary export. Once the band passes and the sun sets completely, it's far too cold and dark to do any kind of work outside, without protective equipment at least.

Mother and Father come to get me a little while later. At some point earlier, my sisters ran off to find candy sellers, so it’s just me and my parents. We find a place for me to sit down in one of the massive tents set up for the festival. There’s going to be music and storytelling and dancing, but Mother said she’ll stop in from time to time to check on me. She and Father have to buy some stuff for the tent.

Storytellers take the stage, one after another, reciting ancient fairy tales and exciting stories of our Romani ancestors. One of the fairy tale stories is about a family who neglects their mother’s burial rites and the mother comes back from the dead to haunt them.

The music at the festival is pure joy and happiness. Violins and violas, basses and dulcimers weave in and out of each other in an ocean of sound.

“Hi, I’m Rawnie,” says a girl sitting to the left of me. Her voice is pretty. Problem is, I don’t actually know if she’s talking to me or not. I mean, her voice sounds like it’s directed toward me, but if she’s speaking to someone behind me and I just don’t hear them…

I’m gonna be brave.

I stick out my hand for a handshake. “I’m Yoben.”

“Nice to meet you Yoben.” She shakes my hand. Yes! “I don’t remember seeing you at one of these before,” she says. She really does have a beautiful voice.

“Yeah, I don’t get to go to festivals too often ‘cause my father’s usually working. It’s just ‘cause this one’s during a work holiday, that’s all.”

“Oh. I have to go to all of these. We sell tents here.”

“Oh, your family makes them?”

“Yeah, we’ve been doing it since forever. My family, way back, brought it over from Earth. It’s traditional.” Her voice has a sad note in it.

“Is that okay?”

“Well, yeah, I mean, it’s what my family does, it’s just…” I hear a scuffing sound and I think she’s scooting her chair over. Yes, she is: she’s closer to me and her next words are louder. My heart races. Not too many girls get this close to me, especially not this soon after meeting them.

“I don’t want to build tents for the rest of my life,” she whispers. Her lips almost touch my ear. "I want to be a doctor. None of my teachers think I can do it, but I know I can."

"I know you can, too," I whisper back. "I mean it."

She leans back and talks at a normal volume again. "So, what do you want to do?” she asks. “In the future, I mean."

"Well, there's...there's kind of, um…I don't know."

"You could do something great."

"I don't know about that."

"Why not?"

"I'm, uh—I'm blind."

"I thought so. My grandmother is, too. Can I ask you something about it?”

“Yeah, anything.”

“Were you born blind?”

“No, I lost my sight when I was really little. I mean, _really_ little: I don’t remember ever seeing anything.”

“How did it happen?”

“Um… I don’t really know. My mother keeps changing her story. One day I get caught in a sandstorm, and the next I fall off the top of the tent and hit my head. Can I ask you something now?”

“Sure,” she says.

“Do you want to dance with me?”

“Yes!” She takes my hand and we start to walk out to join the other people dancing in the middle of the tent.

“Careful! Don’t do that, you’ll get hurt!” my mother’s voice comes from the doorway. I guess she’s checking up on me. We freeze and Rawnie drops my hand.

“Yes, Mother.”

I wait a little bit before I lean over to Rawnie. “Is she gone?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

“Let’s dance!” I pull Rawnie onto the dance floor and we dance, laughing, while the violins and dulcimers play and a thousand couples around us swirl to the beat. She pulls me toward her every once in a while, whether it’s because I’m about to run into someone or she just wants me closer.

The music ends way too soon and everyone applauds.

Another storyteller is announced, and Rawnie’s hands clench.

“Oh, no.”

“What is it?” I ask.

“I have to go help my family sell the tents. Father said I could only stay for the dancing.”

“Oh.”

She takes both of my hands in hers. “I’d like to see you again, Yoben. Before the next festival. Maybe we could meet up in town or something? When I get a day off school?”

“Yes. Yes, absolutely,” I say. “I would lo- uh, I’d like that a lot.”

We exchange numbers, then her hands slip out of mine, and she is gone.

 

_Updates every Monday. BooksByLindsey.wordpress.com_


	3. Chapter 3

The storyteller takes the stage. She treads heavily on the adobe blocks and the beads she wears clack together as she walks.

She begins her story in a strong dramatic voice, and the crowd listens.

“Once upon a time, there was a young boy who lived with his family in the land between day and night. Now, this boy was very ill-behaved. He would pull his twin sisters’ hair, break his father’s violin, and shout down his mother’s beautiful singing.

“Now, this world of ours is filled with the unexplainable. Fortunes rise and fall, things unseen become seen again, and magic swirls up, rare as water in the desert. One day, the king of the fairies grew irritated at this boy’s antics. He had had enough, and he resolved to punish the boy. So while everyone was asleep, the fairy king’s servants crept into the boy’s tent and stole his eyes right out from his head. When the boy woke up the next morning, he could no longer see!”

My hands start shaking, I’m so angry. Luckily, I’m next to the door so I don’t have to pick through people as I stand up and storm outside in the middle of her sentence. Those details in her story, the twin sisters? The father’s violin? She’s talking about me.

I stalk outside, not caring where I’m going, growing madder by the minute.

It’s not my fault I’m blind. I didn’t do anything wrong. The storyteller is lying to everyone.

I stop walking. Little kids to my right screech at each other over candy that one of them has, and an old woman nearby hawks hand-woven rugs. Murmurs of conversation float toward my left ear, along with the clinking of metal cups, and somewhere not far from here, violin music plays.

I was never told the real story about how I lost my sight. It happened years ago, before I remember anything.  It wasn’t my fault.

Was it?

Soon, the festival is over, and my family and I return home. The sun is exactly where it was when we walked to the festival earlier, but now it feels a thousand times colder.

 

Mother cooks stew with homemade bread for dinner. It’s a family recipe, but with ingredients she can get affordably this time of year.

The storyteller’s words pick at me from the time I hear them until dinnertime, when the pressure builds up so much, I explode.

“Why do they do that? Why do they talk about me like that?”

Silverware clatters. “Who was talking about you?” asks Father.

“The storyteller today. Well, one of them. She was talking about my blindness. I know she was, she mentioned your violin, and Mother’s singing, and Malina and Freza. It’s not enough that I’m blind, it’s not enough that everyone else looks down on me because I’m Roma, but our own people have to pick on me too! Why?”

“They don’t know you,” says Father.

“They sure think they do!”

“But they don’t.”

“If they’d just listen!”

“They will not.”

“Well, they should.” I slump in my chair and cross my arms.

“Yes,” Father agrees. “They should.”

We eat the rest of our meal in silence, and I feel bad about ruining the good mood everyone was having. After we wash the dishes and ourselves, and after we help with laundry, Malina and Freza sit down in front of their old, hand-me-down 3D rollup screen with a crack in the corner wide enough to slide a fingernail into. They unfurl it like a rug and press a button and their shows start. Some of them are interesting, if they’re dialogue-heavy.

“What are you watching?” I ask.

“Old reruns of the Caloris Race,” Malina says.

“Oh, yeah? Who’s winning?”

“Well, no one yet. They’re all lost in the desert.”

Freza shushes her, so I suppose it’s getting to the good part. Maybe. The race happens every year, but there isn’t much commentary, so all I get out of it is there’s a big commotion when somebody wins, which is rare. The winner gets a load of money, but they have to survive the desert to do it.

Father yawns and stands up. “I’m going to bed. We’re uprooting solar panels tomorrow.”

“Thank you for taking us to the festival,” I say, and I mean it. Despite the storyteller, I really enjoyed going, especially since Rawnie was there.

“Maybe we can go again soon,” says Father.

After the Caloris Race is over—I still don’t know who won—we all go to bed. I lay there for a bit, feeling the sun that forever shines down, and try to put the story out of my mind. I only succeed in getting myself worked up about it again. She doesn’t even know me! How could she pass judgement on me like that? And so flippantly. Like she knew me for years and grew up with me, and knew my dreams and fears and hopes. Maybe I can’t see other people, but no one seems to see me, either. And I’m the blind one?

 

I wake up smelling smoke. It’s faint, but it’s there. Not like a cooking fire, it’s… dirty, somehow. Things that ought not to be burned. Maybe there’s been an accident.

Father still snores on the far side of the tent. It is not yet five. It’s probably nothing, besides, Father has to work tomorrow, he needs sleep.

Someone in the distance—no, _many_ people—shout, and giant pieces of cloth rip. Something is very, very wrong out there.

I cross the tent and walk until I hit my parents’ bed. I find Mother’s shoulder under the cover and shake it. I feel her startle awake. Her voice is thick and slow, like syrup. “What is it, Yoben?”

“Something is going on outside.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. Something bad.”

“Are you sure?”

“I know what I hear.”

She gets up to check, and I hear her gasp.

“Wake up!” she shouts. There’s a flurry of movement: her feet scamper on the tent floor and her pajamas swish as she swoops down on my sisters. “Wake up, wake up!”

“What is it, Sibella?” Father asks.

“They are burning the tents!”

“Who is, Mother?” Malina asks, but she is too harried to answer.

“The police,” Father says.

“Aren’t we allowed to stay here?” I say.

“By law, yes, but they do not care.”

“But they _have_ to care about the law, they’re the police!”

“Kalo, get the cookpot and canteens. Malina, the spices, put them in your bag, we will replant them later. Freza, leave your toys, take your clothes. Kalo, over here, I’ve got our respirators.”

“How can I help?” I ask.

“Just stay there!”

I can hardly think straight between the fear and the noise outside, which is getting louder: people screaming and the crackle of fire. The smoke gets through the tent seams and into my lungs, choking me.

How can I help? I put on my shoes and feel my way over to my sisters’ bed. Among the lumpy nest of blankets they sleep in, I find five stuffed toys and gather them in my arms. My sisters might need the comfort. I hold the toys to my chest and try to stay out of the way.

Boots in the sand are right outside the door. Someone tears back the tent door and I hear it rip. A strange man with a harsh voice shouts, “Clear out of here!”

“But we have identification! See?” Mother says.

“Fake like all the others.”

“They are _not_ fake, do you see—” I hear a slap, and she gasps.

“How dare you?” Father shouts, but Mother stops him.

“No, Kalo, it will only be worse for us.”

"Get out, or you burn with the tent,” the strange man screams.

Mother’s thin fingers wrap around my arm and she pulls me outside. I hear my sisters crying, and my father’s breath heavy with rage. There is cracking, and then a whoosh as the oil in the cupboard catches on fire. We are as far away as the fence, but the crash of our tent posts falling shatters my ears. The police march away to the next family.

My face burns. I don’t know if it’s from the flames before me or my own scalding tears.

 

_Updates every Monday. BooksByLindsey.wordpress.com_


	4. Chapter 4

We stay with my aunt, uncle, and Toňu and my other cousins on the outskirts of a nearby city until we can buy or build another tent. I tell Father about Rawnie's tentmaking family, and he says he will talk with them.

Father goes to work every day, until one day he and my uncle are told not to come back.

"Boss said there's no more work," Uncle says over dinner. "Even though there are solar panels lying around everywhere and the season just started."

We are eating moussaka, and it is tight, feeding all nine of us. I don't take second helpings of anything, in case my sisters or younger cousins want more.

"It is  _koxamno_ ," Father says. "He is lying. It is because he does not want Roma working for him. And now we must find new jobs."

"You can stay until you find work again," Auntie says.

But jobs are scarce everywhere, for Romani workers at least, and the weaving that Mother and Auntie do don't put enough food on the table. A few weeks later, when everyone else is asleep, I hear Father and Uncle talking about some new laws that were passed. They speak quietly outside the tent, but the wind carries their words to my ear.

"We could move," Father says. "Go to Saturn, there is farm work there."

"If we move, the laws will follow us. No planet accepts Roma. It does not matter who we are or what good we have done in the world, all they see is "gypsy" and close their doors. I am thinking of scrounging for food so that my children do not starve."

"We must keep looking for work. That is all we can do."

They stay out there, maybe lost in their thoughts, maybe thinking about Saturn or some other place. I try to imagine life on Saturn. That's where a lot of our food is grown. I doubt it's nearly as hot as it is here, but it is enormous. Thinking of me, little on a planet so big, maybe lost in a field with no sound but the wind through papery leaves... I feel alone.

I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I know, I hear Father putting on his work boots. I rise up onto my elbows, careful not to wake the others.

"I'm going into the city," he whispers. "Someone must be hiring there."

"Can I go?"

"Not today, Yoben."

My sisters and cousins go to school, and then come back. Uncle comes back from his job hunt. Mother and Auntie weave as fast as they can to make things to sell in the city tomorrow. We wait and wait, but Father does not return.

"I'm going out to look for him," Uncle says. He grunts as he reaches for his shoes.

"He said he was looking for work in the city," I say. Uncle ignores me and leaves. He walks quickly, and the crunching of the sand under his feet fades away quickly. I don't hear the gentle scrape of weaving anymore, either. "I'm sure he's still looking," I say, to comfort them. And me. "There's lots of businesses in the city. Or maybe someone hired him and he had to start right away."

Mother and Auntie do not answer, except to hush two of my cousins, who had started fighting with each other. The silence is awkward, and frightening.

Auntie finally puts my youngest cousins to bed, but the older ones are allowed to stay up. There is no school tomorrow, anyway. My sisters eventually drop off to sleep—I can hear Freza snoring—but Toňu and I wait.

 

_Updates every Monday. BooksByLindsey.wordpress.com_


	5. Chapter 5

The police refuse to help. They say it’s Roma business. I think they think Father just left, but I know that’s not true. No one here believes that he would leave.

Mother, through her grief, had been searching for a job, because her weaving doesn’t make enough money to provide for us. Not just food, but other necessities, too. If my clothes are wearing through, I know my sisters’ are. Especially Malina’s because she plays sports at school and she’s always coming home with ripped clothes. Mother finally found a job in a restaurant in the city, so guess where we’re moving today.

Most cities on Mercury were built on the smooth insides of craters that formed eons ago, before the artificial atmosphere was made. Nothing lived here before the colonizers, and thanks to a strict policy, no animals were intentionally brought here. That didn't stop roaches, rats, and mosquitoes from stowing away, though. I guess they didn't read the policy.

Unlike the others, Caloris City is in the mountains on the outskirts of the Caloris Basin, and it's currently in the sun. Fortunately, they have reflective solar shields overhead so the people there don't fry every time they go out their front doors. It's still hot, though. There are tall buildings in the center, and salt mines around it. The basin itself is where the colonizers are supposed to have landed, years and years ago. The first ones all died, the conditions were so bad, but more came, and the cities and solar farms were built.

The city is a madhouse. Mother clings tightly to me as we cross the street, carrying all of our possessions in our hands and on our backs. Horns blare, alarms buzz, people shout and curse at one another, and the smells of oil, dirt, and sweat waft through the air. A metallic taste clings to my throat, and my shoes scrape along the bumpy pavement. To our left, almost pressed up against us, a woman tries to comfort a wailing baby. A man stands on our right, coughing like he's choking to death. We walk like this until Mother says we're at the apartment.

It is so dry and dusty when we open the creaky door, that the first thing we all do is sneeze.

Freza walks in first. Malina is still standing behind me, holding onto the bottom of my shirt, and Mother clutches my arm like she’s trying to cut my circulation off.

“It’s smaller than our tent,” she says. A door opens somewhere in front of me. “Oh, Malina, here’s our room! But I don’t think we’ll both fit.”

“That is a closet, Freza,” Mother says.

“Oh.”

Malina takes my hand and we go inside. The floor is cold tile, not soft like our tent floor, and everything echoes. There is nothing on the walls to block the sounds from bouncing back or traveling through them.

We stop after a few steps, and Malina pulls my hand down. “There’s a couch here. It’s kind of dusty.” I hear her wiping off the seat. “Well, that’s better, at least.”

“Thank you,” I say. I sit down and smell a burst of dust that apparently came out of the cushions.

The neighbors in the next apartment are having a shouting argument and I can hear every word. Mother and my sisters are in the kitchen, putting away the dishes we brought. I lean my head back and feel a flat surface. I run my hands over it. The wall feels like paper, and the rooms are barely large enough to turn around in. I feel like I’m trapped in a wasp nest.

The room I share with my sisters is just as dusty as the rest of the apartment. The threadbare insulation is coming out of a hole in the wall just above my bed. I don't know if someone punched the hole in or something chewed it open, and I'm terrified to find out that it’s the second one, so I dig out a roll of tape from a bag we’d brought and tear off strips of it to plaster over the hole. I don't feel any gaps when I’m finished, but I call Freza over just to make sure.

"No, you got it," she says.

Mother has been running herself ragged between her job at the restaurant and selling her weaving. I’ve been looking for work, too, but all I’ve found so far are doors shut in my face. I can’t read written words unless they’re in braille, but I can understand spoken words really, really quickly. Much faster than anyone else I know. I’m also great at math and I have a pretty good memory, too. I have a lot to contribute, if anyone would let me.

 

_Updates every Monday. BooksByLindsey.wordpress.com_


	6. Chapter 6

They found Father’s body last week in a salt mine on the outskirts of town. That made it harder for the police to dismiss the newly reopened case as “gypsy business”, but they tried their best. At least they promised to return his body today so we can give him a proper funeral.

Mother paces the floor so hard she’s going to wear a rut in it.

“Where are they?” Her shoes slap the floor, from one end of our tiny kitchen to the other. “It is eight-o-clock. They said they would be here. They said they would bring my husband! Where is my husband?” She shouts the question. I have no idea where Father is, or where my sisters are. Earlier I heard the door to their room quietly creak closed, but since then there’s been no sign of them. They could have escaped out the window for all I know.

The fact of Father’s death has not yet sunken in, but I imagine once the police bring his body here, the reality will be like running full speed into a wall.

Finally, there’s a knock at the door. Mother nearly flies to open it.

“Who are you?” she asks.

“Police, ma’am. You’re waiting for news about your husband?”

“Yes, where is he? Do you have him?”

“He’s at the morgue, and his next stop is the funeral home.”

Mother takes a step back. “The laying-out must be done here, at home among family. It is tradition.”

“Not here, it isn’t. He’s at the morgue. If you don’t like it, don’t go.” The door closes. Mother says nothing, but I hear another door creak behind me. It’s probably Freza and Malina, and they’ve probably heard the whole thing.

“Get ready to go to the morgue,” Mother sighs.

 

“You left him alone?”

We walk down the sterile, freezing hall of the morgue with a nurse and a hospital guard. I have no idea why the guard is here, but he’s making me nervous. Everything smells like disinfectant, but there’s something else, too. Something awful.

“He didn’t suffer for long,” the nurse says. She sounds like she’s in a hurry. “He was pushed into the mine shortly after the attack. The fall killed him immediately.”

“The fall killed him?” Mother’s voice was needle-sharp. I had never heard her so angry. “The fall? Whoever pushed him into the mine killed him! Let go of me!” A pair of boots back away from her and we enter a room just off the hallway.

“Look, it might not even be him,” says the nurse. “We haven’t positively identified him. May we open the cooler?”

Mother must have nodded, because the woman shuffles around to our side and a large piece of metal moves. A freezing blast of air hits us. Mother gasps.

Death smells acrid. It’s not just rotten, like meat that’s sat out too long. It’s sharper. It oozes through your sinuses and drips into the back of your throat.

This is not my father.

“Kalo!” wails Mother. I hear her sobbing, and my sisters crying.

This cannot be my father.

The guard shoves his way out the door and slams the door behind him, hard enough for the gurney to rock.

I refuse to accept that this is my father.

I put my hand out to the icy metal table and run my fingers over it until I reach cloth, and a hollow, squishy mass beneath it. My fingers travel upward, over the ripped cloth, to frigid flesh. I feel a still, cold face, and though it is beaten and disfigured, I recognize it. It is my father.

 

_Updates every Monday. BooksByLindsey.wordpress.com_


	7. Chapter 7

We tell everyone we can, but it’s not enough.

 

 “Do you think we’re disappointing him?” Malina has picked her way through the entire fifteen people who’ve come to the funeral at such short notice. There should be hundreds of people here—everyone who knew him.

“You could never disappoint Father.” I scoot over and pat the empty half of my chair. It rocks sideways as she sits down and hugs me. Her face is wet. “Come here.” I pull her closer.

“We were supposed to say we’re sorry for any bad things we did do him.”

“He knows. I guarantee he’s forgiven everything. If his spirit comes back, he’ll definitely go after the guys who killed him, okay?”

“Okay. But what about all his stuff?”

“Yeah, we’ll have to do something about that.”

I was always told the dead could come back, if they wanted to. If they were displeased with how they were treated, or if their family did not keep to tradition, they would definitely let them know about it. We’ve tried our best to keep to tradition, lighting candles that burned until the funeral, pouring a cup of water out after him as his body left for the gravesite. But there was a lot we couldn’t do because we just weren’t given enough time. The candles and water traditions are important. Fire purifies. Water washes away. We are a clean people, both physically and spiritually. We’ll be ritually unclean for a little while after the funeral, but that can’t keep Mother from going to work or my sisters to school.

“Will we give his things to the poor?” my sister asks.

“To poor non-Roma, yes. The things he left behind are unclean.”

“What’s gonna happen now?” She is crying again, and I remember what Mother always says to questions like these. To comfort Malina. And to comfort me.

“We’ll make do.”

Father is buried in the sands. The guests leave. And we make do.

 

 

I’m out searching for work again. Mother does not know I’m doing this. Technically, I’m not old enough to work most jobs around here, but I’ve been told I look older than I really am. I don’t know what I’m going to do if I’m asked for an ID, though, because it has my real date of birth on it.

Someone shoves past me and I stumble into the person next to me.

“Sorry,” I say.

“Move, stupid!” he growls, and pushes me away.

I would make a rude gesture at him but I don't know if he's still looking at me or not. I settle for aiming several mental cuss words at him and turn around and leave.

The thing that scares me most about the city isn't the bullies, it's the traffic. I take my life in my hands every time I cross the street. If it weren't for the crowds crossing with me and the crossing signals that speak out loud, I might never leave the block our house is on.

Atmosphere filters attached to roofs and streetlamps recycle carbon dioxide and other gases and turn them back into oxygen and stuff. Sensors on the panels measure the percentages of what's already in the atmosphere and produce whatever is running low. It's a cool system, but nothing like what Neptune and Jupiter have, or so I'm told. Granted, Mercury’s income is nothing like what Neptune and Jupiter have, either.

We have trains to ship supplies to different cities and to planet-connecting supply depots. The trains, like most vehicles here, hover. This is purely logistical. It’s really difficult, impossible in some places, for wheels to get through the sand here, especially when that sand has a salt covering that sucks the wheels deep into ruts. Hovering vehicles solve that problem entirely, but they're fragile.

The city is still paved, though, from eons ago when first settlers arrived. They hadn't invented hover tech yet. People mostly use it for walking, but it really needs work. There are cracks and gaps everywhere that I’d trip over if it weren’t for the sensors in my shoes, and sometimes not even they can keep me from falling.

Someone in front of me is hawking news subscriptions. His sharp shouts are loud enough to make my ears ring.

“Is your company hiring?”

“Company? I run this business myself. I write the papers, I distribute the papers, I even make the news myself sometimes! Why, you looking for a job?”

“Yeah.”

“You, uh, you blind?”

“Yeah. That won’t be a problem for selling the papers, will it?”

“Shouldn’t be. Hey, I’ll give you a cut of the profit.”

“How much?”

“I’ll make sure it’s fair.”

“Yeah, but how much?”

“Hey, what’s with all the questions? You want a job or not? You can trust me.”

“Shut up.”

“What?”

“I’m blind, not stupid.”

I leave the news stand and go on my way, down to an office Mother mentioned was hiring. The braille on the sign outside is chipped, but readable: WATERWORK REPAIR CO. I go inside and find the front desk.

“How can I help you?”

“I’m here to apply for a job.”

“Well, it’s only for experienced welders. I’m sorry.”

“Is there anything else open? Any jobs, even little ones?”

“No. I’m sorry.”

I drop my hands from the desk and turn to leave, but a large, calloused hand grabs me by the shoulder before I can take two steps.

“Don’t go yet, I need an apprentice!” says the man who stopped me. “Hey, wait a minute, you're blind!” he says, like it’s a big revelation. My heart thinks. He’s probably changed his mind about hiring me. “I got an idea,” he says. “You don't need the sun to see where you're goin'. How ‘bout you work on the far side? Got a couple pipes that've sprung leaks. Think you can fix ‘em for me?”

I’m so shocked I can hardly speak. “Yes, sir, I—I'll try my best.”

“Come back when we open and I’ll see if I can set you up with the gear. It’s room zero-zero-two. You got that?”

“Yes, sir! Thank you!”

 

_Updates every Monday. BooksByLindsey.wordpress.com_


	8. Chapter 8

I try to sign up for school, now that I’ve gotten my job problem solved, but the lady at the front desk of the school says I’ll be put in separate, lower-level classes.

“Because I’m blind.” I say.

“No! It’s…different.” The people behind me shuffle their feet and rustle their bags. One man clears his throat.

“I can use my tablet for reading,” I say, “with headphones so I don’t disturb anyone. And I won’t run into things because I have my clickers in my shoes. And I—"

“It’s not your blindness, we have other blind students here, it’s just—you probably aren’t cut out for the higher levels…”

“I listen to books written for college students. I can do math in my head. Ask me something! Multiplication, division, anything!”

“No, it’s not that, it’s because…”

“What?”

“You’re Roma.”

“Because I’m Roma.”

“Yes. There are other people in line, please—”

“I didn’t ask to be born Roma. Did you ask to be born into your family?”

“That’s not—”

“I can do as well as anyone else, just let me prove it!”

“It’s the lower-level classes or none at all, now, there are other people waiting.”

Disgusted, I turn around and walk out the door. Maybe I _should_ take the lower classes. It would be better than nothing…

But I’m better than that. I know I deserve better.

 

It’s almost time for the Waterworks place to open, anyway. Bumps on the sidewalks help me cross the street, and braille on the light posts tell me street names so I can get back to the company. I could upgrade to shoes that tell me street names and limited directions, if I could afford it. But I can't. So I feel the light pole and hope there isn't gum or worse on it.

I haven't actually had any formal training in braille, so I read really slowly and I don't know any of the abbreviations for things, but I get by. They make little handheld devices that read out loud whatever you point them at, and some of them hook up to earphones so you’re the only one who can hear them, but my family’s never been able to afford that, either.

In the newer office buildings, people with money pay for braille signs that pop out of doors when I hold my hand up to them. I think they are precision-controlled jets of air. That’s what they feel like, anyway. Not the building I’m looking for, though. That braille sign is attached to the wall.

The room I’m supposed to go to turns out to be in the basement. Which sounds sketchy. I take the loud, rumbling elevator down and my new boss greets me as soon as the door opens.

“Yoben! Come here and put this climate suit on. Machine B’s leak got bigger, need you to hurry out and fix it.” He tells me the coordinates as he helps me slide the thick, heavy suit over my clothes.

The temperature difference on both sides of planet is used to condense water. Unfathomly big machines cross between the two sides and connect to pipes that are dispensed into vehicles that deliver the water to centers where people get what they need. Extra water costs more money, but water rations are a right for everyone.

The suit smells like sweat and dust, and I shudder as I climb into it. Who knows how many people have worn this before me, and I don’t think it’s ever been washed.

“These’ll keep your hands from sticking to the pipes.” My boss hands me two thin, stretchy things. Gloves. Very thin gloves. Not much protection from the cold, but if he says so…

I pull them on and they, like everything else I’m wearing, are at least two sizes too large.

“There’s a rover parked outside’ll take you straight there. Come on, I’ll take you to it.” We go up the rattly elevator and back outside. Not very far away from the door, we stop and my boss helps me up into the seat of a little scooter-sized vehicle. He tells the rover the coordinates to Machine B. It beeps two smart, efficient beeps, rises smoothly from the ground, and I set off for the dark side.

 

_Updates every Monday. BooksByLindsey.wordpress.com_


	9. Chapter 9

The metal is like ice. The alarm in my other hand squeals and rattles so loud I can hear it shrieking through my helmet, and the suit I wear makes for cumbersome walking, not to mention the tools strapped around my waist. I wish I could wear the thicker gloves, too, and not risk frostbite, but I can’t. I have to feel to repair the leak.

I go a little farther and the alarm shrieks again. The high pitch cuts right into my brain and instantly gives me a migraine. I stuff the stupid thing in a pocket of my suit and clamp the fabric over it, which muffles it just enough to take the edge off my headache.

I feel around for the leak, and soon enough, I find it. Ice water is spurting out of one of the pipes. It hits my hand like a jolt of electricity: fast, hard, shocking, and numbing. I shake it off before it freezes, but clingy droplets instantly turn to ice. The bolt on the metal clamp next to it is jiggly. I dig a wrench out from my belt and feel the end of it. Nope, too small. The next one seems like it’ll fit. I guide it onto the bolt and feel it lock. Perfect. I tighten the bolt until the water stops spraying.

I would give anything not to put my hand back into the water, but I have to make sure the leak has stopped. Gingerly I feel around the pipe and find nothing more than a few tiny icicles. I am so glad I have the thin gloves on, or my hand would have frozen to the pipe, too. My breath catches for a moment at the thought of being stranded out here, alone and away from everyone, slowly freezing to death. What a nightmare.

I start to walk back to the rover when I hear a familiar sound. My feet feel like lead, or like the sand has slithered up and grabbed me around the ankles. A sandstorm.

There’s no time to get to the rover so I turn around and run toward the machine with my arms outstretched. I hit the pipe with my stomach, knocking the wind out of me, but there’s no time to stop. I duck under the pipe and crawl as far as I can until I hit more metal. There seems to be a kind of tiny alcove here. I squeeze inside as far as I can. The machine sucks heat out of me with every second that goes by, but I don’t dare move until the storm is over. I’m used to mild storms in the warmth of the rise/set band, but out here, it’s not just sand. The wind hurls chunks of ice and rock through the air, picking up and tossing everything in its path.

The machine is pummeled, like a crowd around it is beating it with their fists. A loud clang tells me that the rover is probably out of commission. I hope the pipe I just fixed makes it through. I’d hate to have to do that over. But then, that’s my job now. I’m going to have to do this every day.

Maybe I should quit.

No, I can’t quit. I have to work for Mother and Freza and Malina. They have to eat, they have to have a safe place to sleep. If Father could work at the solar farms every day, I can work here.

The storm passes and I crawl out from my hiding place. I feel around for the rover, only to find it upside down against the condensation machine. When I tilt it back upright, it clinks like metal rain inside it. That can’t be good. And even with these tools I have no idea where to begin fixing it. I get on and try to crank it up manually, hoping that nothing inside is damaged. Nothing happens.

Please! I can’t be stranded out here!

I try cranking it up again, and it gurgles, then lifts up a little bit. Even if it’s just skimming the ground, that’s fine, as long as we both make it back in one piece.

“Home,” I tell it. It gives two staticky beeps and lurches forward. We crawl along, but at least we’re moving.

Hours later, I make it back to the city. I’d removed the gear I was wearing piece by piece as we got into warmer territory, but right now I’m sweating like I’m inside the sun itself. What will my boss say?

“You have arrived,” says the rover, and promptly expires. The office door bangs open and someone comes running out.

“What did you do to my rover?” my boss shouts. He stops next to me, but I think he’s really yelling at the rover.

“Sorry, sir,” I try to give him back the gear but he’s freaking out over the destroyed vehicle.

“Sorry? Sorry doesn’t fix this!”

“We got caught in a sandstorm.”

“A sandstorm? There weren’t any on the reports earlier.”

“There was one, it got in the clothes, see?” I shake out the suit he’d given me and sand hits the pavement like a waterfall.

“This was no sandstorm. I know what you did. You were stealing parts from it, weren’t you? With the tools I gave you!” He rips the suit out of my hands and the toolbelt from around my waist. “You’re fired!”

“Hey!” I say, but he’s already leaving. I hear him muttering as he walks back toward the office building.

“Will _never_ hire a gypsy again, the thieving…” The door bangs shut again, and I’m colder than I was on the dark side of the planet.

 

_Updates every Monday. BooksByLindsey.wordpress.com_


	10. Chapter 10

How will I tell Mother I lost my job?

How will I tell my sisters that I can’t buy them clothes or more food?

I’m trembling, but I don’t know if it’s from shock, fear, or if I’m still cold from the far side. How could he do that to me? What would I do with those rover parts anyway, even if I had stolen them? Which I didn’t.

What can I do?

Go back to the apartment, I guess. I could start searching for another job, but I don’t have the heart for it right now.

How do I get home from here? I’m so stressed out I can hardly think straight. I lean against a nearby building to rest and get my bearings. Traffic blares next to me, and my hands are still shaking, but I force myself to think. I’d taken a left at the first intersection, walked three blocks and—

“What are you doing?”

The loud voice startles me and I’m afraid it might be my former boss coming to yell at me again, but it’s a woman’s voice. She’s coming toward me, and from the sound of all the footsteps in that direction, she’s not alone.

“Lazy beggars crowding up our streets and taking our unemployment benefits!” She gets up close to me and her hot, stinking breath steams on my face. “Get outta here!”

I duck and run away, but I bump into someone else before my shoe clickers can warn me about them.

They shove me backwards, and I put my hands up in a feeble defense, in case they go in for a punch. “Taking our jobs!” he says.

“We ought to get rid of all of you,” a different man says. I turn around and run away from them. I try to keep an ear on the traffic so I don’t run out in the middle of it, and I have to slow down and swim through the crowds on the sidewalk, but I eventually reach a quieter place and stop to listen.

All I hear is my ragged breathing. No one is following me. I find the closest building to, well, wherever I am, and try to catch my breath.

I wonder how they think we can take their jobs and their unemployment benefits at the same time. And I would love for one of them to try working at a solar farm. Father came home every day, gritty and coughing from the sand, almost hobbling from the lifting and stooping he had to do. They wouldn’t last a week. After waking early and working late, it was all Father could do not to collapse as soon as he walked in the door. But he still made time for us. He loved us.

I lean my head against the rough side of the building and try not to cry, because I am so, so close to letting all my tears fall.

“Hey, look!” I hear the voice of an older boy and a bunch of feet come running toward me. Oh, no, not more of this. I crouch down and shrink as small as I can in the corner between the building and the pavement. But it’s not me they’re running at. They stop a few paces to the left of me.

“Look at this poster. The Caloris Race is coming up!” The boy’s voice is halting and staccato, like he’s reading something. “For glory, honor, and riches.” My ears perk up at this. Riches are fine and good, but I just need to pay this month’s rent.

I wonder if there are any prizes for second and third place. I doubt there are any for dead last, which is where I would end up. If I finished the race at all. I can just imagine myself lost out there in the desert, dying of thirst. Besides, I don’t even know where to apply.

“It says they’re accepting applications at the supply depot. That’s around the corner. Let’s go!”

I struggle to my feet and side over to the poster. I run my hands up the wall, my fingers brushing every crevasse and chip in the stone, until I reach the edge of the poster. It crackles at my touch.

“Glory, honor, and rent,” I whisper.

 

_Updates every Monday. BooksByLindsey.wordpress.com_


	11. Chapter 11

“We’ve never had a blind kid in the race.” I’m at the depot, which wasn’t hard to get to after all, talking to two men at a desk. The supply depot is where shipments from the other planets are dropped off, especially from Saturn. The boys I’d overheard earlier had already applied and left: they blew past me at the door. All I want is the application, but these guys just won’t stop talking.

“Roma kids, sure.” The other man’s voice is higher pitched, but they both have the city accent that I’ve grown accustomed to.

“We had that Deaf girl one time.”

“Yeah, I remember her. All the charm of a space pirate and an attitude to match. She almost won.”

“Not thirty yards from the tower. The other girl was just faster.”

“Can you please hand me the contract?” I interrupt. One of them leans forward and puts the device in my hand. “Is there a screen reader on this?” I ask.

“I could read it to you.”

“Thanks, but I’d rather the machine did it.” No telling what these people could add or leave out. I don’t trust them that much. If my mother or sisters were here, they could read it to me, but I don’t plan on telling my family about this until I bring home the prize money. My sisters are likely to see me on the show, and they’re sure to tell Mother, but that won’t be until the runners are lined up the start of the race, and by that time it’ll be too late. I hope.

The man presses the button on the device in my hand, and an automated voice begins talking. I pay close attention to it. This is not just any desert I’m going into, it’s _the_ desert. It doesn’t happen often, but kids do die out there. My life could depend on this voice in my hand.

“Welcome to the Caloris Race. We hold this race every equinox in honor of the first settlers on Mercury. These brave pioneers oxygenated our world, built our cities, and explored this new land. They triumphed over many great dangers, and in this race, so must you.

“You must find a stone tower in the desert. There is a button at the top. The first competitor to climb to the top of the tower and press the button wins.

“There are no prizes for second or third place. We are the first planet in orbit around the sun, so only the first competitor will be rewarded. If you fall unconscious, you are out of the race. If you harm another competitor beyond what is reasonable, you are out of the race.”

Reasonable? How much is considered reasonable?

“The race continues until the button is pressed, or every racer has fallen unconscious.

“You will be given supplies to help you on your journey. Our goal is that none of you die, but this goal has not always been achieved. Please sign the release below.”

 

_Updates every Monday. BooksByLindsey.wordpress.com_


	12. Chapter 12

“You are home late.”

“I stopped to talk to someone.”

“Did you?” Mother does not sound like she believes me. We are all sitting around the table, eating dinner, and Mother has not spoken much since I got home. I don’t answer her. “Because I was uptown today applying to be a waitress at a restaurant near the supply depot. And who should I see but my son going inside?” A dish clatters and my heart thuds. “This is not about that race, is it?”

“No, Mother, of course not.”

“I lost your father, Yoben. I will not lose you.”

“You won’t. But imagine all the money if I won!”

“You are blind! You do not stand a chance against these other children, who have trained for years and have their sight! You will walk right past the tower!”

“We could pay for a bigger apartment! We could have enough food to eat!”

“We will work hard and make do, as we always have. Put the race out of your mind, Yoben. I will not lose you.”

I give up and leave the table and sit down on the dusty old couch. I cross my arms over my chest and lean back and accidently hit my head on the wall. Ow. This apartment is so tiny. How could she just ignore this opportunity? It’s not like we’re going to get super high paying jobs here, especially since neither of us have a great education, since she was forced into lower-level classes, too, and had to drop out to help her family.

I feel a thump on the cushion beside me, startling me out of my thoughts.

“Freza and I could race,” whispers Malina.

“No way. It’s miserable out there. And besides that, you’re not old enough.”

“When we are old enough, then. We might win.”

“Well, _you_ might. You’ve got a competitive streak.”

“You can tell the difference between Freza and me? Everyone else says we are all the same.”

“Yeah, they do. But what do you think?”

“I’ve never met anyone else like me. Not even Freza.”

“Neither have I.”

“Yoben? I think you can win.”

“Don’t worry,” I say. "I plan to.”

 

_Updates every Monday. BooksByLindsey.wordpress.com_


	13. Chapter 13

Before the race, in a building near the starting line, I walk into a concrete-floored metal warehouse full of people. They're all talking at once, but I can make out little snippets of their conversations. A sharp voice cuts through the noise.  
“Pick up your gear at this station! One pack per competitor!”  
I walk toward the voice, but someone shoves me aside. “Move. You won’t survive this, anyway.”  
“I will,” I answer.  
“What’s your name?”  
“Yoben. What’s yours?”  
“Erin. Learn it. You’ll be hearing it a lot after I win.”  
The line moves slowly. When I finally get to the front, someone presses a backpack into my hands.  
“What’s in it?” I ask, stepping out of the way of the people in line behind me.  
A soft-voiced woman answers. “A tent, a refilling canteen, an audible compass, sunscreen, a respirator, and an extra cloth.”  
“Thanks.”  
The Basin is a thousand five hundred and fifty kilometers across and completely uninhabited. Nothing—not a beast, bird, or blueberry—can be found anywhere inside. It's either a nature or history preserve, I don't remember which, but the only tampering that gets done with it is the tower being built and then torn down every year, and whatever impact the racers have. It's only a preserve because the first people who colonized the planet landed in the middle of it. But they didn't survive. They ran out of the water they'd brought and couldn't make it past the ring of mountains to the ice caps. I have no idea if the next round of colonizers buried them or jettisoned them off into space. Or found them at all, their shriveled bodies could still be out there. But it's not likely: we've been running the race for decades now and no one's stumbled across them yet.  
“What is that clicking noise?” shouts Erin.  
“It’s my shoes,” I say. “I’m blind—they help me know if anything is in front of me.”  
“That’s cheating!”  
“All they do is keep me from running into stuff, honest!”  
People crowd around me and someone pokes me in the chest. “You’re blind?”  
“Can you see me?”  
“Do you think we’ll catch it if we touch him?”  
Two of them grab my arms. Their hands are so calloused it feels like they’re covered with scabs. I scowl and pull away from them. I ought to smack them, but that wouldn’t end well for me. I know what my cousin would say. He’d say, “May shame eat your face, don’t you feel ashamed?” But do I say that? No. Because I’m too afraid.  
The sharp-voiced woman comes up to us and breaks up the argument. “You can see, he can click. That’s final.”  
My entire body sags with relief.  
“Everyone to the starting line. When the flag waves and the buzzer sounds, the race begins.”  
Updates every Monday. BooksByLindsey.wordpress.com


	14. Chapter 14

I’m standing at the starting line with the other racers, including Erin and a soft-voiced girl named Evelyn, when I hear an all-too familiar voice: “Yoben!”

Oh, no.

“Yoben, you cannot do this!”

My mother. How did she know I was here? I hadn’t told anyone about this! I follow her voice, slowing down halfway there to squeeze through a crowd of spectators waiting for the race to start, which it will any moment now.

“Mother, what are you doing here?”

She seizes my face in her hands. They are rougher than I remember. She smells of cinnamon, as usual, except it’s overshadowed by grime from the street. “Yoben, you cannot do this. We will make do without the money. We always have.”

“We will starve without the money. Father would let me.”

“Your father is not here. You must come home.” She clutches my wrist and starts to drag me away.

“No, Mother.”

“Racers, take your places.” The announcer’s mechanical voice echoes out of the speakers.

“Mother, I have to do this. Mother!” I yank my hand out of her grip and accidently hit a man behind me.

“Hey!” he shouts, and shoves me forward, into Mother’s arms.

“Useless gypsy kid.”

My mother freezes, except for a sharp intake of breath. “What did you call my son?”

“A. Useless. Gypsy. Kid.” His voice comes from way up above us.

Mother moves me aside and gets right up close to him. She is not a tall woman, but when she wants to, she can make a person feel the size of a mouse. Which is exactly what she is doing to this guy. “Is your child racing today?” she asks.

“Erin? Yeah, he is. And he’s gonna win.”

“No, he is not. Mine is.” She hugs me tight. “Go win this race, Yoben,” she whispers in my ear. She turns her face toward the man, but I can hear her loud and clear. “We will see who is useless and who is not.”

“Last call for racers!” The announcer gives the final warning. Mother lets go of me and I fight my way back to the starting line.

Someone takes me by the shoulders and walks me over to the line. “We’re rooting for you, kid.” It’s one of the men from the sign-up table, the one with the higher-pitched voice.

“Thanks,” I say. A buzzer blares and a flag snaps in front of us, and the race begins.

 

_Updates every Monday. BooksByLindsey.wordpress.com_


	15. Chapter 15

A boy beside me takes off running, already breathing heavily. Evelyn, the girl on my right, is much wiser. She keeps pace with me, walking so we don’t waste energy and lose water so quickly. More kids trudge through the sand around us. But we’ll split up soon. As we run low on water and morale, we will go off in different directions. That’s how it works during the race. There is no telling where the tower will be. It could be back where we started, or all the way on the other side of the basin.

My shoes slide into the sand with every crunching step and the sensors in them beep. Of course I’m running into something: it’s called sand. But I don’t dare take the clickers out, because if I reach something solid, like the tower, they’ll definitely tell me: the beeping will get a lot louder and faster. Otherwise I might walk right past it.

I wrap my cloth over my head and around the back of my neck. My skin is practically sizzling. I might just spend all of my prize money on sunburn cream when this is over. Not only is the heat coming from the sun directly overhead, but it’s also reflecting off the ground. I unscrew the lid of my canteen and take a sip—slowly, carefully, so I don’t spill any or drink too fast. There was nothing in the rules that said they’d come get us when we ran out of water; only after we’d collapsed, which could be hours later. I guess I could pretend to go unconscious. Would that work?

Well, I’m not going to worry about it. Because I’m going to win. I pick up my pace just a little, and some of the other kids do, too. Others fall behind.

 “Is that a mirage?” Evelyn asks.

“Is what?”

“That big yellow building ahead.”

“How am I supposed to know that?”

“Oh, right…maybe I’d better stick with you, if you can’t be tricked by mirages.”

“Ha. Maybe you’re right.”

We stop talking then, so we don’t lose water vapor out of our mouths, and trudge on.

 

_Updates Mondays. BooksByLindsey.wordpress.com_


	16. Chapter 16

I haven’t heard anyone around me for a long time. I stop and listen again. Yeah, unless they’re stepping at the same time I am, I’m alone.

I’m too tired to feel afraid of the loneliness. I wonder when the girl left. I hadn’t been paying attention. The worst part is that I think I’m walking in circles. I pull out the compass and press the button on the side.

“North-North-West,” the cheerful compass says. Way too cheerful. A horrifying thought occurs: if I actually die out here, this irritating compass will be the last voice I ever hear.

I lick my lips. They’re already starting to chap.

Maybe I should take a break. There’s no way anyone else could be near the tower yet. And besides, I’ve got to get out of the sun, at least for a little while.

I pull the tent off of my shoulder and pull a string to assemble it. Problem is, I don’t know which way it’s supposed to go. It would have been nice if we could have tested this gear ahead of time, back before the race, and gotten used to how it works and everything, but I guess that’s not important to the people in charge.

I wrestle with the tent, trying to tell its up from its down. Whatever. It doesn’t matter, as long as it gives me some shade. I’m frying out here. I crawl into the opening of the tent, which I actually think I got sideways. But it could be upside down for all I care—I just want a few minutes of shade.

I wonder how close the others are to the tower. And I wonder how close I am. I wonder how close they’d need to be to the tower to see it. I have to be right up next to something for my shoe clickers to register that it exists. I really hope they don’t break out here. I don’t know if I can afford new ones.

The whooshing sound of a sandstorm approaches and I pull the opening of my tent closed tight. Snug in the fabric, I feel the wind pushing against the tent, fighting to get in the door, but I know it won’t make it inside. I have no fear of this sandstorm like I had for the one on the dark side. There’s no chance of any ice chunks slicing the tent open here. Even though I lose water with every breath, I start to laugh. Is this sandstorm the best that the desert can throw at me? This won’t be as hard as I thought!

The storm passes and I crawl out of my tent, which is half-buried in the sand. I stand up, dust off, and pick up the tent to shake it out. But as soon as I put my hand on it, the wind picks up again and snatches it out of my fingers. I lunge for it, and my fingertips scrape the fabric for an instant before it’s carried away. I run forward with my arms outstretched but I feel nothing. Only the air and grit from a second sandstorm.

I panic. How am I supposed to get through this without a tent? I need shade, I need shelter! Something crashes a little distance in front of me, and I run after it, hoping the wind had dropped my tent, but there’s nothing on the ground when I get there. I walk around in circles, trying to trip over my tent, if it’s anywhere around, but it’s not. It’s gone.

The sandstorm grows around me until it’s almost as large as the last one, and I curl up on the ground, pressing my respirator against my face until there are no gaps. My clothes are an awful substitute for the tent, but I wrap them around me. Maybe they’ll keep a little sand out. I doubt it.

There’s nothing to do but wait out this storm. Panicking won’t help me, but I’m getting really close to doing just that.

After the storm is over, I lay there for a little bit. What do I do? Stay here? Maybe I could go back to the starting line and wait for someone else to win. I could give up.

But my mother and sisters need me to win. We need the money to survive. And I want to win. For myself.

I pull out my compass and hope it didn’t get damaged.

“South-west,” it happily asserts. Like it hadn’t just gone through a sand dunking. Like it wasn’t lost out here. Like it still had hope.

I move and immediately wince. I have sand in places I didn’t know I have.

I sigh into my respirator and pick myself back up again. Sand falls out of my clothes and I shake even more out of them. Only thing to do is keep going.

 


	17. Chapter 17

One advantage I have is that the sun doesn’t glare in my eyes. At least, if it does, I don’t notice it. My sisters were always complaining about it whenever we had to travel to a more sunlit area, which wasn’t often. Mostly visiting to sell handicrafts that Mother wove, but sometimes we went to the next solar farm a little early if work ran out at the previous one. We’d stop just ahead of the day-night band and make camp, and as the season wore on, it would get progressively colder until we moved again.

I liked traveling, I liked the new people and places that each season brought us to, but our moving was not by choice. We could never afford the gear that I’m wearing today against the sun, or the suit I wore in the cold while I fixed the machine. A twinge of jealousy pricks my stomach. The fact that these people could afford it easily, and my father worked all his life and couldn’t come close…

I wonder if I can keep this gear after the race, or if they’ll make me return it. They can afford more: I’ve already lost the tent and I don’t think they’re going to make me replace it.

The air tastes like salt. It sucks all the moisture out of my mouth, even through my respirator. I think I’ve reached a salt marsh. The ground under me crackles and my shoe sinks down through a thin crust. Yeah, it’s a salt marsh. This would be so much work to slog through, but I bet the other racers would avoid it for the same reason. And the tower might be out there.

I take another step and my shoe clickers go crazy. I put my hands out to feel something large and solid. Is this the tower? Have I found it already? I run my hands over the jagged surface. It’s not straight cut stone like the tower is. It’s roundish. I think it’s a boulder. I pat the top of it. Yeah, it’s a boulder. But I think…

I move around to the other side of it and I’m instantly greeted with refreshing coolness. Yes! Shade! I scoot up under it as far as I can and try to take stock of my situation.

I shake my canteen and the water inside sloshes around. Some kind of filter device inside it gathers oxygen and hydrogen from the atmosphere, and a process inside a little chamber on the side combines the chemicals. It’s a super slow device, but it’s better than nothing. And the canteen is almost as heavy as it was when I left. Good.

I pat my pockets to make sure I still have my compass. I do. The tent was a big loss, but I’ll manage. In fact, I think I’m sitting underneath my new tent right now.

I lean my head back against the rock and take a breath through my respirator.

Someone shuffles their feet nearby, and then the scraping turns to stomping.

“Hey! This is my territory, you stupid gypsy!” It’s Erin’s voice. He shoves me over hard, and I hit the ground, scraping every exposed inch of my arms on the rock. Sand hits the top of my head, along with little chunks of rock. I think he was aiming for my face, and I’m very glad he missed. I roll out of the way, trying to clutch my canteen to keep from breaking it, but he snatches it out of my hands.

“Hate to drink after you, might catch your germs, but I need this.”

I hear water hit the ground in front of me as he drinks, and every drop pricks me like a needle.

“You only think about yourselves,” he says. “I’m just returning the favor.”

I pull myself to my feet. “You don’t even know me.”

“I know your kind.”

“You don’t know my father or my mother.”

“I don’t have t--”

“Or my aunts or my uncles, or my cousins.”

“You’re all the s--”

“You don’t know my friends, or my girlfriend.”

“I don’t have to! You’re all the same! All of you!” he screams. He takes off running with my canteen and his ragged breathing and heavy footfalls fade into the heat that hangs over me like a canopy.

How is he allowed to do that? What did the contract say? Reasonable?

“How is that reasonable?” I scream to Erin’s back. The moisture from the back of my throat dries up, and the spit on my tongue evaporates. Stretching my mouth like that deepens the cracks in my chapped lips, sending sparks of pain through my face.

It was a bad idea, shouting like that. A waste of water. Now that I don’t have any.

 

_Updates every Monday. BooksByLindsey.wordpress.com_


	18. Chapter 18

I walk—my throat burning, my knees wobbling, the dry air like a knife to my lungs and the sun beating relentlessly—until I can’t anymore. Then I crawl. I don’t know what I’m searching for now. Shade, I guess. Relief. From pain. From trying.

Searing pain crosses my knees and I reach to feel them. They are wet beneath my ripped clothes, and not with water. I wish it was water. I start to wipe my forehead with the other hand, but a copper smell stops me. Both of my hands are blooded, torn by sharp gravel that litters the ground.

I have no water. I have no shade. I have no sight. And I can’t crawl anymore. It was _dinilo_ , foolish, like Mother had said. What had made me think I could do this? I curl up on the desert floor. I’ll fall unconscious soon. I hope. And this will all be over.

I feel something cold fall on my skin, over and over. Am I in a hospital? Did I already collapse and they took me away? I touch the ground beneath me and feel burning sand. No, I’m still in the Basin. The coldness continues, small and steady, landing on my face, arms, and neck.  I recognize this feeling. It’s water. Is another contestant pouring their canteen out on me?

No, they wouldn’t waste their water like that. What am I feeling?

Thunder—unmistakable thunder—crashes above me, and I turn my face up to it.

 _Brišind_. Rain. Imagine that. Rain in the desert.

The drops fall on my forehead and nose, and on my lips. I open my mouth to drink. It’s cold and clean, and I can’t get enough of it.

Then the rain stops, but I can hear it fall around me. It’s like someone had set up a tent over me. I crawl toward the rain, trying to get more to drink—fresh, clear water…

“Yoben.”

I stop. It’s a mirage. It must be. That deep voice… But he’s dead. He died. It can’t be.

“Father?”

“You were not meant to die here.”

It is his voice. He’s right here speaking to me! But it can’t be him. He is back in the city, Or, his body is. His spirit must have come back. Malina was right: we did disappoint him.

“Are you here because we didn’t bury you properly? We tried to, but we couldn’t. I’m sorry!”

“Yoben, keep going. Do not stop now. There will be no rescue for you here.”

“I can’t do this!”

“You can, Yoben. Our people have faced the worst mankind has to offer and survived. Now you must do the same.”

“How can I? Our ancestors weren't blind like me!”

“You were not meant to die here. Keep going.”

Rain brushes over my skin once more before it dissolves away, and the thunder rolls into the distance. I feel around. The sand is just as dry as before, my hands and knees are as bloody as before, and if anything my thirst has gotten worse. But I push myself to my feet, stagger a little, and then I move forward like the race is just starting. Because it is.

 

_Updates every Monday. BooksByLindsey.wordpress.com_


	19. Chapter 19

Water.

Even if it was a hallucination, it’s gone now, and I need water. I’ve got a migraine the size of the Basin itself.

Where even am I? It’s like I’ve been wandering in circles, except my right arm is hotter than the other from more sun shining on it.

I press the button on my compass.

“Ea…Wes…Ea…Sou…Wes…” it stutters. Even it doesn’t know where we are. Have I hit a dead zone or something? The compass should still work.

Maybe that was what Father was talking about, when he said I wouldn’t be rescued. No one would be able to find me. But how would he have known that?

There’s nothing around. No sound except my shoes clicking and the wind blowing every once in a while. And the crackle of my throat as I struggle to swallow with hardly any spit.

It’s eerie.

Empty.

Until I trip over something and go sprawling across the ground. I reach back to find out what I tripped over.

It’s wrinkly and dry, like leather. And whatever it is, I can’t move it: it’s half-buried and stiff. It’s a big thing, too. My hands travel upward. There’s some kind of cloth over it, and a… pin?  A badge? I run my fingers over it. It’s the symbol of the pioneer’s mission, I think. But why would it be out here, on whatever this thing is?

I feel even further upward, to find something brittle, and a roundish thing like a deflated volleyball with holes in its dried leather. One big one on the bottom, a little one over it, and two more just above them.

Slowly, I realize what it is. A skull.

I scream and fall backwards and kick myself away, spraying sand everywhere. Something underneath my hands feels smooth and burning hot, like metal. I try to catch my breath.

It that one of the competitors from years ago? Did they die out here in the dead zone and no one rescued them? But why would they have a pioneer’s pin? They all disappeared in the failed mission. Unless it’s a duplicate. And what am I sitting on?

I wipe sand away from whatever it is on the ground. Anything to distract me from what just happened. It’s a large, smooth sheet of metal. I bang on it with my fist. It sounds hollow, empty, and big. The rest of it must be buried deep in the ground.

If the badge is real, then this might be a rocket I’m sitting on. And the pioneers brought things with them. Food. Oxygen. Research supplies.

And probably a canteen. If they died in the crash, instead of thirst from wandering in the desert, maybe they brought water with them. Maybe they still had some.

Do I dare try getting water from it? What if it’s diseased? What if it’s poisoned, and that’s how the pioneers died out here? It’s been years. Could the germs have survived all this time?

Not to mention, it’d make me unclean. I mean, yeah, because it’s probably moldy and mildewed and gross, but also spiritually. Touching the dead body. And the canteen that used to belong to the person. And wouldn’t it be stealing? Not that they’d have any use for it now, since they’re dead and everything. But still…

Probably no one has found these people since they crash landed out here. They came to Mercury in the first place to scope out new land to help people back on Earth. We’d run out of resources. People were dying.

And instead, the pioneers died and now they’re practically worshipped as martyrs.

But the water.

I inch closer, sliding on my bottom across the sand. If they came here in the first place to help build a better life for people, and this person right here, me, is dying for lack of water, and there might be a canteen in there…

I make my decision. I reach out and touch the dead, emaciated, dried-out body, feeling along its ripped clothing flapping in the wind, along its brittle arm impossibly thin, until I get to the container at its side. I pull upward, and something pops, and terror smacks me in the face and rolls down my spine and arms and legs. I didn’t just break their arm, did I? I didn’t just desecrate the body of the pioneer? I’d be run out of Mercury entirely! They’d ship me off to Pluto in the nearest cargo hold!

No. It was only the strap attached to the canteen, almost rotted through, that I’d broken. I shake the container. There’s something in it. Cold, slimy fear slithers in my stomach as I pop open the cap and sniff the contents. It smells okay. Stale, but not moldy. Not like death, which was what I was expecting.

Just for safety, I let a drop, just one drop, fall on my hand, to make sure it doesn’t burn or anything. And then I take a sip, which turns into a guzzle, and before I can stop myself I’ve drained the whole thing.

So now what? I know where the pioneers are. And it’s a dead zone, so no wonder no one’s found them before. I should tell someone once I get back. The government and scientists will want to know.

The water’s kicked in, and my headache has dulled. And now that I’ve got water in me, I’m going to find the tower. I bet it’s not far away.

I pull my respirator back over my mouth and set out to win this race.

 

_Updates every Monday. BooksByLindsey.wordpress.com_


	20. Chapter 20

My palms smack into something. I stretch up the smooth, flat surface as far as I can, but it keeps going up. My shoe sensors are going wild, and my heart thuds like it's trying to escape and float away.

I made it! I'm at the tower!

I feel around for any footholds on the chiseled stone, and I find several of them in the middle of the wall. It's not a very wide tower, probably twice as wide as I am tall. Trembling, I wedge my hand inside the first indentation, find another with my foot, and pull myself up.

Something pulls me backwards and I hit the ground hard. “Don’t think you’re gonna win, stupid.” Erin blows past me and starts climbing.

I get up and find the handholds as fast as I can. My shoes scuff against the wall and my injured hands scream at me, but I ignore all that and just climb. His ragged breaths and the scrape of his palms in the gaps of the tower are getting louder. I think I’m gaining on him.

I hear a scream next to me and I freeze. There aren't traps on the tower, are there? There never were before.

I hear Erin kick the wall next to me.

"Yoben!" He cries, his voice strained. "The handhold is gone! It just collapsed! And I can’t pull myself up!"

"Can't you just drop?"

"We're thirty feet up! Help! Please!"

I could climb to the top and press the button. Then we'll both be rescued. But he could fall by then.

I could rescue him and lose the race. He's sure to get ahead of me again if I help him. And then he’ll get the prize money. And I’ll have nothing for Mother and my sisters. I could just let him fall. Why should I help him after everything he’s done?

He gasps, and his shoes scratch against the wall. I think he’s really going to fall if I don’t help him. I can’t let him die!

I reach out and he grabs my wrist.

The weight on my arm is unbearable, but it’s just enough for him to swing over to my set of handholds. He catches the holes below and next to me with his feet and free hand and lets go of my wrist. My shoulder burns like it was wrenched from its socket. I lift my arm as far as I can and start to climb again, but I hear movement below, and Erin shoves past me with a grunt, his sour sweat stabbing my nose and his feet hitting the wall next to my head. He knocks me sideways and I almost lose my grip. I grab at his ankle, but he kicks me away, so I climb after him, through the agony of my shoulder and hands.

He reaches the top before me. I can hear him laughing and stomping his feet on the solid stone. There's nothing I can do. I've lost.

I drag myself over the edge and stand up, holding my throbbing shoulder. He'll press the button in a moment. And I'll have lost.

Why did I think I could win anyway? What chance did I have? I was born poor and I'm going to stay poor. Everyone will make sure of that. I had no chance, starting out where I did. Why did think I could win?

“You won. Congratulations.” I lower my head and listen for the sound of a hovership to come and pick us up. But there’s nothing out there. All I hear is the sound of Erin breathing.

"Did you press it?" I ask.

"No."

“What are you waiting for?”

“You.”

I turn so I can hear him better. “What?”

“Get over here and press the button.”

“What?”

“You saved my life. I mean it, it’s not a trick.”

"But—your—the prize money!"

"It can wait a year."

I step toward him and hold my hand out. He puts his hand over mine and guides me to the button, and then lets go. The button is metallic and smooth, and larger than my palm. I press it, and a buzzer, kind of like the one that started this race, roars from the tower and echoes for miles and miles.

“I will share this,” I promise Erin.

“Yeah. With your family.”

 

_Updates every Monday. BooksByLindsey.wordpress.com_


	21. Chapter 21

The hovership doors open to an enormous shouting and clapping crowd, but not all of them are cheering for me.

“The gypsy cheated!”

“Erin should have won!”

I feel someone’s hands gently push me forward, and then to the left. I feel tired and betrayed. Tired because I’d just dragged myself through a desert. Betrayed because I thought things would be different if I won the race. Like people would see me as more than just a Romani kid.

 “You won! Yoben, you won!” My mother runs up to me and hugs me, and I hug her back. She lets go, and someone puts a metal trophy and a coarse cloth bag in my hands. The bag has metal chips in it, just for show: I’ll get the real money later.

“You can fix your eyes!” Mother cries.

“I can what?” I freeze, and my blood runs cold. My eyes could have been fixed all this time?

“Yoben, I am sorry for keeping it from you, but I thought there was no hope. You got very sick when you were young, too young to remember. Kalo and I never told you. The sickness took your sight. We couldn’t afford the doctor’s fees, but now you can, Yoben. Now you can!”

I could get sight after a lifetime without it?

I feel the metal chips loose inside the bag and think about the money. After everything, I finally have the chance to see. That would be lifechanging, even more than winning the race. But that’s not the reason I entered the race in the first place…

Should I? Is that what I want?

 “No. You’re not going to have to slave away to support us anymore. We’re gonna pay rent with the money and I’m going to school. I’m going to make you proud.”

She cups my cheek with her hand. “You already have.”

I know: _Who would choose to live with blindness?_ But I grew up with it. It's what I know.

Father was right. My Roma ancestors overcame the most awful things life has to offer, and so can I.

I lift up my trophy, and the crowd roars, and any booing is drowned out by all the people cheering for me. They chant my name louder and louder. And right now, that’s all I need to hear.


End file.
